GamesCom 2017 - A short review
We attended GamesCom in Cologne last week as trade visitors. It was our second GamesCom, and we learned a lot from it. Additionally, it was a milestone for us because we released our first game, ChromaGun, for PS4 and Xbox One!
Hey, I’m Markus from Pixel Maniacs and this is my first blog post, so have fun reading it!
This post should not be considered a convention guide, it’s just a short review of what went well and what didn’t.
Since this was my first GamesCom ever, my colleagues who were there last year shared their experiences with me for this review as well.
Here’s the link to last year's blog posting from our CEO Ben:
What we learned from last years's GamesCom:
1) Book a hostel close to the exhibition.
Our hostel was about a 30 min. walk away from the exhibition. Not a short distance, but definitely an improvement!
Except for our merchandise, we had nothing heavy to carry (unlike last year).
2) Arriving too late
This year we arrived on Monday afternoon via train and car, but we had no booth to set up so we had enough time to check in and prepare for the first party.
3) Not enough people
We learned from last year's mistake, and had 5 Pixels participate in GamesCom 2017. We split up and went to almost every party we could find. It was a really great way to get to know lots of people from all sorts of companies.
4) Parties
Did I mention that we went to almost every party? We really did! On Monday we met the best taxi driver in the world. It was one hell of a ride! Every party was worth it, and by the end of the week we were really exhausted but so glad GamesCom went well for us.
5) Merchandize
Just in time, our brand new shirts arrived and we were thrilled to give them away! We made sure to post a selfie on Twitter with almost every person that had a Pixel Maniacs shirt - a great way to get retweets from big influencers. In short, it was a good way to reach a ton of people!
Lessons learned for next year:
Having no booth is bad
Sure, if you don’t have anything to exhibit, then having a booth doesn't make sense. But if you do (and we could have at least shown ChromaGun for PS4 and Xbox One) you should definitely have a booth!
First of all, exhibitors get access to the convention floor for every day of the convention. We didn’t manage to get tickets for Saturday, which sold-out after a short amount of time.
Furthermore there are special parties, like the exhibitor party, which every exhibitor should attend in order to connect with other great teams and companies.
What went well:
1) Networking
As mentioned before, we had 5 people from our team participating at GamesCom, so we had the chance to meet more people at different locations. It was an awesome opportunity to get in touch with lots of amazing people; everyone was really kind and open to meeting new people. It was also great seeing all those guys and girls we’d met at last year's GamesCom such as streamers, community, and press.
2) Community Meet-Up
We had our first ever community meet-up, where around 30 people came to meet us, an interesting way to get to know the people behind their Twitter and Twitch nicknames. It was really nice celebrating our release with brand new shirts and our awesome community!
3) Live-Streaming
We had the chance to be part of several live streaming events. On Wednesday (our release-day), we had a 30-minutes interview with Ilyass from RocketbeansTV which reached around 7000 viewers on Twitch and Youtube.
Thursday was also packed with great shows, such as a live stream with Maxi from Microsoft via Mixer
and we were live on the Mifcom stage with Robin Rottmann from Zockolores
Feel free to give feedback.
See you next year GamesCom!
Best wishes!
Markus from Pixel Maniacs